'Sooryavanshi' Movie Review: That fun of the first day show

SooryavanshiDir Rohit ShettyU Action crime thrillerCast Akshay Kumar Katrina KaifRating 35It is kinda distressing that along with all the action promised and dutifully delivered one must also on occasion have to contend with a worldviewmdashso far as this filmrsquos story plus screenplay are concerned Both separately credited to Rohit Shetty apart from opening credit for producer director and ldquoaction designed byrdquo Whatrsquos this worldview exactlyFirstly PR pap about how the repealing of Article 370 special autonomy in Jammu amp Kashmir led to the end of all crossborder infiltration in the Himalayan Indian stateWatch trailerTwo that for all the loathe foisted upon a full cornucopia of terrible although piously driven Muslims in this moviemdashBilal Ahmed Riyaz Hafiz Mukhtar Ansari Aziz Kader Usmani Rafique countless othersmdashthere is indeed a token Muslim man or two who isnrsquot driven by the urge to ruin India Those are still Indian Muslims mercifully Rest are Paksentsponsored nutsThat I should even mention the above is sheer disservice to the purpose behind this film though Thatrsquos waited in the wings for a couple of years now patiently seated through the pandemic in order to be the first Bollywood release since the espionage thriller Bell Bottom 2021 that also starred Akshay Kumar Which is of course to suggest Akki the superhero isnrsquot quite a precious screen commodity as it wereBut this is a movie by the ldquofestival directorrdquo Shetty foremost that comes with its own obvious spinmdashapart from a fast and furious pile up of SUVs Fortuner ldquoBhagyavaanrdquo and Scorpio ldquoBicchoordquo rotating in midair crashing over each other The word festival in the context of cinema is usually applied to arthouse the world overIn India it takes the shape of mad mainstream consistently cartoonish stuff designed for a holiday release of which this country has one too manymdashtop of the pops being the Diwali cracker of courseThat in this case along with the toys in motion stars the ageless boys as it weremdashAjay Devgn as a dragracing Singham and Ranveer Singh as Simbaa breaking through the brick wall standing shoulder to shoulder with Sooryavanshi Kumar coming down a helicopter in a curious cop universe that defies what cops are like and what the universe must do to themEach superstarrsquos onscreen entry alone makes for a series of lsquomoney shotsrsquo as they say ldquoIt doesnrsquot matter whose is biggerrdquo says Singh in the film Either way hersquos the only one actually acting heremdashputting on a thick Marathi twang The other two are simply being their cool rsquo90s selves Paisa vasoolCut to Katrina Kaif killing it softly with the Viju Shah remixed number lsquoTip tip barsa paanirsquo Pro tip Know exactly what yoursquove walked in for Which is neither Katrina nor a movie that merits a review But a collective tribal theatrical experience with the public primed for every dialogue repartee bad joke and good blowup jobSounds of machine guns and fist punches are embedded into the background score as if they were compositions of their own As are loud hoots and claps You can hear both from the speakers and those around you The oneliners land because the junta is simply waiting to lap it up The lsquohelicopter shotsrsquo work because the context is just about enough for it toThis concert like energy is infectious on a first day show with a long line outside the boxoffice because thatrsquos what popular cinema by definition isItrsquos been so long wersquove experienced this that I accidentally stepped into the wrong auditorium in the multiplex The movie started after the interval It obviously ended with the climax and closing credits This is when I figured I may have missed the first half altogether Requested the multiplex manager to allow me in again He generously did And the film started all overUntil then did I even know for sure that Sooryavanshi is about a bunch of terrorist lsquosleeper cellsrsquo reactivated after the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts with RDX buried under the earth since NoThat the three top cops must save India from a series of blasts mimicking rsquo93 I guess Does it matter No What was I staring at otherwise Donrsquot know Would these crazy cops save the world regardless Of course God Irsquove missed this Donrsquot take it away again